Just a warning, it's going to get dark. Some readers may find the following descriptions a little graphic. If you do this probably isn't the book for you.

The Witching hour at Hogwarts was as black as midnight, with only the dim flicker of the torches to provide guidance through its hallways. It had been quite a night, admittedly, with the pathetic little skirmish in the hallway which Roman had watched rather bemusedly. He didn't take part in the boys' petty pride feuds.

He was preparing for something far more important that would occur that night. Something that would set the wheel in to motion. As he made his way through the hallway to the disused bathroom on the second floor. He paused, waited and then turned in a measured fashion, a calm smirk on his face. "Lorcan, Maeve, Scarlett." He began, almost as if could see out from the back of his head.

"You're early." He remarked, and shook Lorcan's hand in greeting, then kissing Scarlett on the cheek. He felt Scarlett blush, which amused him a little. Roman could take his pick from almost any girl in Slytherin; in fact, he had done in the past. It was just all too easy. But Scarlett had always struck him as a little more different; sophisticated, perhaps. Able to stand on her own too feet. And yet here she was, blushing. He would never let an opportunity like this go to waste. "It's good to see you." He murmured in Scarlett's ear before drawing back.

"Did you bring what was required?" Roman asked the two of them, and they nodded in response, holding up something black in their arms.

"Good. Then again, you two aren't as dim witted as the others." He added with a trace of black humour, pushing open the door.

Immediately they were met by a flushing sound accompanied by airy giggles, and the ghostly figure of Moaning Mrytle came in to view.

"My my," she began, as she traced her form around Roman who was in the front of the small group.

"Aren't you a handsome one. You remind me of a very special boy who came to visit here years ago."

"No need to tease, Myrtle, you know perfectly well who I am. Don't tell me you're trying to impress one of my friends?" He asked, with a mock-wounded expression on his face. Mrytle gasped in response, and fell over backwards in a melodramatic faint.

"I'd never." She said, almost pleading, sticking her tongue out at the two behind him.

"I was starting to worry, Myrtle. Perhaps I can't give you what you wanted after all." He insinuated, and gauging from the look of dread on her face it was the right thing to say.

"No, please!" She cried dramatically, raising in to the air.

"On one condition. When my friends and I come here, you stay quiet as a mouse. And you don't tell a soul about it."

"Yes, of course, not a soul!" She replied, holding her hands together between her legs like an excitedly embarrassed child, before whooshing away back to her cubicle and down the pipes with an immature little 'weee'.

Roman turned around to the other and rolled his eyes silently, before approaching the sinks.

"This is all very nice, Selwyn, but why exactly are we here? I mean of all the places, here?" Asked Maeve flatly.

Roman chuckled as he began to feel the old brass taps for the sign of an engraved snake. "You'll see." He said, as he placed his hands on the tap he was looking for. Then, taking a step back, he opened his mouth and spoke. This was going to be the hard part. He closed his eyes, and picturing the image deep in his mouth spoke a sequence of sibilanced-syllables. Then after a second, with a low rumble the great stone lid of the sinks lifted in to the air , and the sinks drew apart. He turned around to see the shocked faces of his companions.

"Was that... parseltongue?" Lorcan murmured quietly. "But I thought?"

Roman smiled faintly with one eyebrow slightly raised as he stepped forward to the trapdoor, before saying, "The world reveals its secrets quite willingly if you know where to look."

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

It was Maeve Urania Mistry, who Finnigan teased as M.U.M who had come to Octavius when he was lonely and told him that he was wanted. Wanted. Such a simple word, and yet so foreign to the lonely boy's ears. He never thought six letters could hold so much power over him, and yet, after she had told him about this Circle, he couldn't stop thinking about it.

Maeve had taken him to meet Roman for the first time last week. He'd always seen Roman as unsettlingly intimidating, but when he actually spoke to him, alone, he was... it was hard to explain. Warm? He spoke to him gently, controlled, but not patronising. He made Octavius feel so valid, like he was the most important person in the world. Like he didn't need to melt away in to nothingness every time someone set eyes on him. All the evidence was pointing towards taking up his offer, and so he did, and he found himself here, outside the dark opening to the Chamber of Secret under a disused bathroom. Stepping through the open door, he made his way in to the Chamber and the dark enveloped him. Underfoot he could feel crunching, and he looked down in horror to see that it was bones. He knew the stories of Harry Potter'a defeat of the Basilisk - everyone did. But it still felt unnerving being here in the flesh.

The caves had opened up to a dark hall, lined with the intimidating snakes heads bearing their fangs that lead to a great head of what must have been Salazar Slytherin with floating hair and an open mouth at the end of the hall. As he took a step in, the candles went out, and the darkness was illuminated by a vague green glow that caught the damp on the stones. Ahead of him he could see figures in cloaks as black as the night itself that seemed to blend into the abyss.

Ashe came in to view of the group, he pulled the cloak of his own hood up which covered his face entirely with a black sheen as the others had done. They were surrounding the skull of the basilisk, which looked intimidating even in dead. On the skull was carved what looked to be an ancient runic spell, or curse? The writing transferred to and around the skull.

"Our final member is here" said a voice, and stepped forward.

He removed a vial from his pocket, and with an extended arm tipped the dark brown contents out onto the stone and then pointed his wand down at it. Octavius felt someone's arm pull him back, and he took a step back as he realised the liquid was forming some sort of shape in the carvings in the rock. Then, the person murmured. "Incendio." And in a burst of dark green flames, the indistinguishable liquid not lit up, all lines connecting it to the centre.

"We are here to connect our old bloodlines to the past. To revive the magic that lies within every single one of you." Said the voice. He watched as the figure and took something from the basilisk - a tooth perhaps, and ran a blade along its tip, to collect the venom perhaps. Then, holding his hand up for the others to see, pressed the razor sharp knife against the palm of his hand and cut. The blood dropped to the floor with a sizzle, and to Octavius' horror he held his lacerated palm directly over the flames before turning to  directly to face Octavius. Octavius could feel his heartbeat quickening and rising to his throat, and feebly held up his hand for Roman do mutilate it.  So strong was the fear in his mind that he almost didn't feel a thing as the knife cut in to his skin. And when it was placed over the fire, he felt nothing but a pure re-born ecstasy coursing through his veins like a new rush of electricity. It was incredible.

Octavius pulled back his hand as Roman moved to the next person, and examined it, but all he could see was spot from the flames and a little blood. He realised that the knife, if it was even a knife at all, must have been something very special indeed.

As the last person in the circle removed their hands from the flames, in died down and left a glowing pool of molten green liquid on the floor. Looking at it, Octavius realised that it was the snake itself, the Ouroboros. When he wiped away the soot, he saw not a bloodied mess on his own palm, but a tattoo of the ouroboros with thin lines of glowing blood-red that were slowing fading in to his skin. It was incredible. He traced the hot skin with his palm, and there was no trace of broken skin or wetness from the blood.

He thought of those aged wizards with their faded dark marks. Embarrassments from past years that only bought shame or regret. But this was different. This had revitalised him. They were not about Death, but about Life. And it was theirs for the taking.